ggodo

Sihanouk-s-Poodle

The Urgent Care comment is geared more toward the direct question of over-crowding in hospitals not so much payment. The more Urgent Care facilities an area has the less packed the ER and hospitals usually are. Ppl are more likely to use them and use them sooner. They're cheaper then a trip to the ER and usually the wait time at them is far less becaue you don't have more emergent patients leaping froging you in line. The SOONER ppl get medical treatment the SHORTER their time in a hospital ALWAYS is.

It's these kinds of things that keep Blacks and Mexicans from assimilating. If you hear DHLS is paying for/ soliciting these kinds of Think Tanks then the leap in logic isn't that far from what Jeherimiah Wright was talking about. The US Gov. creating AIDS and giving it to black ppl isn't that hare brained when you talk about history and the Military giving Indians blankets that came off of Small Pox corpses and the Tuskegee Syphillis Experiment. These tactics keep conspiracy theories, rumors and the just plain discontent too much ammo.

Final

Tei

stjohn

I think we need more nurse practitioners everywhere anyway. They rock.

Evil Tortie's Mom

You instead want to use cloak and dagger techniques to not only discourage faith but instill fear in the American Medical System...

Politics and Funerals always show how ugly ppl are.

Final

That is a good point, very often in fantasy/Sci-Fi novels the political end-game is either some form of despotism/monarchy or a parliamentary democracy with an overwhelmingly powerful chief executive, often the protagonist of the struggles proceeding that phase of the story (Babylon 5 would be 1 example).

I think it has to do with three things, the first being that benevolent monarchy isn't something Americans are typically raised seeing as a core value, so using it in a future scenario lends a bit of "native savagery" that helps the audience abstract the characters a bit from their own experience, much like Colonialist fiction used to in the 19th and early 20th centuries in regard to places like Africa and the Carribean/Pacific islands.

The second thing is that Monarchies are structurally simpler to envision, especially when government and politics is not the over-riding theme of the novel. If you've spent half your fantasy sci-fi novel focused on the hero and his struggles with tech/magic/etc against evil forces, I can see not having a lot of effort/space left over to detail a complex democratic system; particularly if the failure of other complex democratic systems is also a hinge on which your narrative swings as well.

Finally, I think its hard to argue against benevolent despotism, if the despot is of sufficiently amazing character to handle the job. Thats why you always hear that George Washington was basically offered a de facto kingship and refused when they talk about him in history books, whether he was truly that noble and wise or not nonwithstanding, a significant fraction if not a majority of the enfranchised colonists at the time thought he was. Again, if you've built somebody up all book as a paragon of righteousness and responsibility, handing them the reins probably makes a ton of sense, especially in the author's mind.

Of course, some of my favorite Sci-Fi of all time doesn't really fit easily into any of what I just said, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Songs of Distant Earth being two that spring immediately to mind ;)

DaiMacculate

Pure profit based health care systems are harvesting organs all the time, they're just calling it something else...

darcymcgee

Brought to you by mostly the same people!

Evil Tortie's Mom

Of course if he's anything now like he seemed to be in the Land of the Lost 1st season DVD extras I'm not absolutely surprised, but still WOW, right?

His grandfather was a major player in the Teapot Dome Scandal, so you can see where he probably gets it.

strider_mt2k

Upper classes always have to have a boogieman, and Americans are, (although for how long is an open question) an upper class in global terms.

As the grandson of immigrants i have no problem with this crop. They work a lot harder than some Americans i could mention, and contribute a lot to this country.

Niven is a great idea man, and a decent writer, but he is losing it.. I thought i read that he was terminally ill. Pity. Still waiting for the third "Integral Trees" book.

As for the politics, SF has always been evenly divided between the right and left wings, perhaps less now days, as it is so largely a female form.

I wounder about the political breakdown of Fantasy. A lot of those books go to Monarchy or benevolent despotism as a default position.

codydog

codydog

How about the fact that in my state, illegals who actually go to college (something they're fighting to eliminate in some quarters), end up creating a net profit for the community colleges they attend? Not being eligible for scholarships or in-state tuition, they pay an average of $1800/per over what any other students do. Oh and its not like they're getting ESL help at that point, to succeed you have to think most of those students are more or less assimilated Americans, which is the goal, isn't it?

Thats not even getting into how much those vegetables you just bought 3 for 2 dollars at the supermarket or whatever would have cost if industrial farmers had to pay legal workers minimum wage to pick them for you.

What I'm getting at is attacking illegals like they're a disease vector (basically niven's solution) composed of individuals or some type of criminal underclass is not only not going to get rid of them, but its going to just make the situation worse for all concerned. The problems that have caused the migration of 10 million or more illegal immigrants to the U.S.A. need to be addressed by reforming their countries of origin and addressing the diplomatic and economic hardship people experience around the world.

Thats not to say we can't have any damn Sticks, I just don't see the point if there aren't ever going to be any Carrots either ;)

DaiMacculate

Evil Tortie's Mom

I have A Mote in God's Eye sitting on my shelf unread. I'll still get to it, but it looks like Niven has joined Orson Scott Card in the Rest Home for Reactionary Has-Been SF Writers.

wintermute2_0

Anyway whilst this might be based on faulty premises, he probably wasn't asked anything about the premises, and was just told to create a solution. Which he did. It's a good solution, for the objectives desired. If you want different objectives met, that's fine, but how much say Niven has in formulating these objectives is another matter.

Mister Adequate

Greasy Thumb Guzik

With private health care in the U.S., it seems entirely plausible that this is already happening...somebody looks at a young body that's suffered major trauma, and decides that the profit of the organ transplant surgery is higher than the profit of the profit of keeping that traumatized body alive.

That's organ harvesting, even if you try to call it something else.

Or do you think that your "for profit" hospitals make rational decisions based on the "health of the patient?"

darcymcgee

[mondediplo.com]

gfburke

Sounds like they aren't all loons. That's not exactly what I'd call "right wing."

futurpunk

shadownode

Auld_Lang_Ziety

kcquestor

mattclary

[en.wikipedia.org]

"During World War II, he did aeronautical engineering for the Navy, recruiting Isaac Asimov and L. Sprague de Camp to work at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard."

mattclary

I personally think they should go through with it just so I can see Dateline NBC do a piece called. Emergency Rooms: Medical Miracles or Mexican Murder Farms?

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

The source material lacked any specific context to the moments of the quote - this posting only amplifies the lack of integrity of the source.

bdavis007

[www.xs4all.nl]

He is apparently quoting Heinlein's introduction to Sturgeon's Godbody in 1986.

Also, to be fair, he doesn't precisely say that Heinlein was a writer at that time, just that he was supervising a circle of science fiction writers.

braak

braak

Any references? Didn't think Heinlein became an author til after the war.

mattclary

Nivin is no Swift and trying to spin ignorant remarks as satire stinks so bad, Jerry Pournelle could smell it.

Gyrus

I say "Larry Niven for president". I like his "outside the box" thinking.

mattclary

I think we can all agree white people are rubes as much as the stereotypical frantic latino mother of nine. How many flock to see the Virgin Mary in a cloud or on the side of an old building?

Ed Grabianowski

Too bad it's flat out wrong. Illegal Imigrants don't use much of the social well fare programs the US has. They distrust government services, especially one sin a country they've entered illegally. When they go to hospitals it's rare and only for serious problems, a cost that is built into the budget of any metropolitan hospital.

Even in context, it's a horribly racist statement. It's ignorant and further spreads a right wing myth that is xenophobic, destructive and just plain cruel.

Whatever idiot decided that a bunch of hack sci-fi writers should consult on government policy matters should loose their job.

Gyrus

And when someone proposes that saying something should count as a hate-crime, that's definitely thought-crime territory.

SeanOHara

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

Jeff-Minor

knyne

And SIGMA? What, they couldn't get the rights to X-Men or SHIELD? Douchebags playing grownups.

Dr. Spaceman, Esq.

Anyway, Niven is nearly 70, so he pays for little of his health care anyway. Why not spread those rumors among nursing homes so old people will just die and stop leaching resources?

Sihanouk-s-Poodle

Isn't "hate crime" just another way of saying "thought crime?"

"A Modest Proposal" couldn't ever get written in days like these. Swift would be strung up.

michaelk42

This idea would very easily prompt one of the moderators to expand the scenario to include the crisis of trauma centers closing left and right in southern California and how that would impact the scenario - - then run into how the same technique to get people to flee could be used to... and so on.

bdavis007

SavannahJack

the focus is clearly on the wrong part of the story, the fact that there are talented artists that have batty political ideals comes as a suprise to no one but the extreamly naive. the disturbing information is that someone is listening to them, there's no such thing as a 'well quailified nut.'

tetracycloide

Plague

I could most definitely see a scenario presented where a biohazard attack has caused mass panic in a major urban area (like L.A., Houston, et al) and emergency rooms are being overwhelmed with people that need immediate treatment along with everyone that thinks they need and deserve immediate treatment. Of course rioting is occurring outside the hospitals. What could be done to control the situation?

Shame on you, Annalee Newitz, for not fleshing this item out with context to give a more honest picture. You've certainly created a shocking post, lacking any kind of detail or journalistic integrity, and received all sorts of rush-to-judgment responses from readers... Hazaa for you...

bdavis007

So if we're in the context of a think-tank where the object is to come up with solutions to problems, no matter how nutty, finding some way to get a specific subset of people to visit hospitals less often is a solution. It's even a pretty interesting, science-fictional solution (government omni-presence controls populace through absolute information control).

So to me, this was just Niven brainstorming. He didn't say, "I really think this should be policy, I hate those dirty Mexicans."

I'm not saying he doesn't feel that way, I just don't have the evidence to make that judgment based on the content of this post. I'm remaining agnostic about Niven being a crazy right-wing nutjob.

(It should go without saying that I would find the idea abhorrent if put into practice. I just don't think we should rush to excommunicate someone just for discussing it.)

Ed Grabianowski

The problem of hospitals going broke is hugely exaggerated by transnational corperations who aren't going to pay for anything anyway.

DearEditor

Mathmos

Garrison Dean, King Awesome

This reminds me of the circle of writers that Robert Heinlein led during WWII, whose job it was just to think up outlandish things that might be useful. Is this the same organization?

braak

Damonicus

Grey_Area

We need real science advisers, not sci-fi war pornographers trying to promote their latest wingnut wank fantasy.

Gyrus

I find Niven's comments and the ethnic reference disturbing, of course. Still, if an SF writer had suggested we spread this rumor so that stupid people and conspiracy theorists stayed away from the hospital, quite a few people would have had a laugh and moved on, and not questioned any prejudices found in that attitude.

Timeshredder

knyne

aspiringexpatriate